Chapter 19
The Song of the Trench
Vaelis
The stunned silence in the High Plaza shatters into jagged pieces.
"Abomination!" Elder Soryn screams. His shrill voice is amplified by the magical acoustics of the grand podium. He points a trembling finger at Kael. "A dark trick! A foul necromancy of the deep!"
He faces the paralyzed crowd of glittering nobles and armored soldiers. The elite of the Reef float in frozen horror, their finery stark against the rusted bulk of our shell.
"The beloved Prince is dead!" Soryn yells, spit flying from his pale lips into the water. "He fell on the ridge! This thing floating before you is a mindless puppet. A hollow skin-suit worn by the trench monsters to confuse your grief!"
I swim forward onto the ruined porch of the shell.
I carry no iron weapon. I lack my ceremonial Vanguard uniform. I wear nothing but a crude tunic made of salvaged sailcloth and a canvas cloak carrying the scent of my Basalt-Kin.
Yet, I embody a true Prince.
"I am not dead, Soryn," I say.
My voice rings calm. Kael's presence beside me acts as a living sounding board, projecting my words across the sprawling amphitheater. The water carries the truth to the back rows of the assembly.
"And I am no puppet," I continue. "I wear no suffocating pearl dust. My colors burn. I am Vaelis. I am the bait you threw away in the dark. I am a signal, and I refuse to hide."
I look over the crowd. Familiar faces from my past stare back. The people who trained me, the people who dressed me, and the people who abandoned me.
"Taren!" I call out.
Taren hovers in the front row of the infantry phalanx. His iron spear dips low, his young face pale under his helm.
"You held ground on the ridge," I say, my voice ringing with hard authority. "You heard the Commander's panicked order. 'Leave the Red.' You watched the Vanguard pull the line back and leave me for the swarm."
Taren flinches as if struck by a blade. He checks Soryn, then returns his wide, guilty expression to my face. He lowers his spear.
"Jareth," I call out.
A veteran guard near the front flinches, his scarred knuckles white on the shaft of his spear.
I lock my gaze onto him, cutting through the chaos.
"You watched this very Basalt-Kin take me into the deep.
Tell them the truth, soldier. Did he bite me?
Or did he catch me in his arms? Did he bare his teeth, or did he shed tears? "
Uneasy murmurs ripple through the military ranks stationed below the podium.
The soldiers exchange nervous glances, the polished color of their scales dull with dawning horror. The carefully constructed narrative of my grand martyrdom, a story they were fed to fuel their righteous anger, cracks and splinters under the crushing weight of my living, breathing presence.
They know the Vanguard abandoned me to the deep.
I turn, my breath catching in my throat as I watch Kael swim to my side. He takes my outstretched hand, his rough scarred fingers engulfing mine, and the contact sends a jolt not just through my skin, but straight to the core of my being.
He faces the crowd with me, a solid, terrifying presence at my shoulder. His newfound voice is a weapon I wield, but he is the shield. He is the unbreakable foundation of this entire, desperate stand.
In that moment, facing down an army, with my hand held fast in his, I am not afraid at all.
I am invincible.
"The Basalt-kin," Kael roars, his gravelly voice vibrating the marble beneath our fins. "The crabs, the eels, the broken refuse of your city. The Reef banished us from the light. Now you attempt to steal the scrap of survival we carved from the dark."
His dark eyes scan across the crowd, a dominant predator claiming his territory.
"Tell me, Vaels, what buys your loyalty? This broken tyrant fed you poisoned honor. He fabricated the rumors of Basalt-Kin hunts in the Reef after the Mourning Tide. He manufactured the brutal martyrdom of the Prince standing at my side."
Kael stops, locking his dark eyes on the Royal Guard.
"I demand an answer. Who holds the true title of monster?"
Hesitation continues to spread like a stain through the pristine formation of soldiers.
Soryn's pale eyes widen with a sudden, animal panic. His control over the Reef, a lifetime's work of subtle manipulations and outright lies, slips through his fingers.
He slams a spindly fist against the podium console, the sharp crack traveling across the plaza.
"Treason!" he shrieks, his voice a thin, reedy thing in the face of Kael's thunderous authority. "Guards, I've heard enough! Kill the monster! Kill their puppet! Fire!"
The heavy infantry, the common Vaels, falter. Their harpoons remain lowered, their wide eyes moving from their screaming Elder to their returned prince.
Their training is warring with their conscience. It demands the protection of the royal bloodline, not a public execution of a Red Prince.
The Royal Guard, Soryn's fanatical elite encircling the podium, offers no such hesitation. Coin and privilege have bought their loyalty, and their ornate, golden masks are impassive as they raise their heavy harpoon cannons, the glowing tips taking aim directly at our rusted shell.
"Shields!" I scream, propelling my body in front of the open doorway to protect Mira.
Kael moves faster.
He swims in front of me, a living shield of muscle, and the sight of it steals the air from my lungs.
Every muscle in his back is pulled taut as he uses all of it to shield my softer scales from the coming storm. His body is a map of violence, but every wound, every scar, is now a fortress built for me.
A sharp, ragged breath catches in my throat. Liquid heat coils deep in my belly, a slow, dangerous burn ignited by the sheer, magnetic force of his protectiveness.
This want is a threat, a distraction that could shatter my composure when I need it most.
I lock my jaw, grinding my teeth together, and force a harsh exhale to reclaim my focus.
Kael opens his mouth and roars.
A physical wall of sound hits the open water like a detonating depth charge.
The acoustic force of the vibration knocks the first volley of iron harpoons off course.
The heavy projectiles spin out of control, embedding themselves into the polished marble floor and shattering the coral decorations.
"Now!" Kael bellows, turning his heavy head to the dark water beyond the perimeter. "Scavengers! Forward!"
The marble wall of the High Plaza explodes inward.
The Scavenger Army pours over the broken barricade like a rising tide of rust and shadow.
A waking nightmare descends on the manicured nobility of the Reef.
Spider-Crabs holding rusted stop-sign shields clatter across the mosaic tiles, their heavy claws snapping.
Hammerhead exiles smash through delicate coral statues, their scarred bodies impervious to the panicked strikes of the guards.
Eel-kin weave through the infantry ranks, shocking soldiers into submission with bright blue bio-electric pulses.
A Royal Guard thrashes in panic, fighting a terrifying menace.
Pip.
The shrimp has buried his scavenged needle into the soldier's tail. The guard spins in frantic circles to dislodge the invader. Pip refuses the retreat. He rides the flailing scales with the posture of a conquering warlord, snapping his limbs in a victorious rhythm.
Terrifying chaos.
The sheer power of the betrayed. Beautiful justice.
"Hold the defensive line!" Taren shouts. He ignores the scavengers. He uses the shaft of his iron spear to block a lethal strike from a zealous Royal Guard. "Do not fire at the Prince!"
The Reef turns on itself. Brother fights brother in the shadow of the crystal spires.
A Royal Guard lunges toward the porch, his harpoon leveled at my chest.
The Hammerhead slams into his flank, tearing the weapon from the guard's hands and tossing the man aside.
The shark shoots me a grim salute with his scarred eye before diving back into the fray.
"They are distracted," Kael growls, his hand grabbing my bare arm and dragging us back toward the Shell's entrance. "The weapon. Soryn goes for the weapon."
My eyes snap to the grand podium.
Soryn abandons the panicked crowd. He leaves his Royal Guard to die in the crossfire.
He inputs a frantic sequence of commands into the glowing console. The crystalline spire towering behind him, the terrifying Tidal Bore, begins to hum with raw energy.
This is no normal mechanical hum. It is a deep, radiating sickness.
A low, grinding vibration starts in the polished floorboards. My teeth ache in my skull. The water surrounding the crystal spire boils with thousands of cavitation bubbles, superheated by sonic friction.
"He's charging it!" I yell over the roar of the battle. "He plans to fire the weapon here in the plaza!"
"He will destroy the foundation!" Bolt crackles from his cage inside the shell. "He will drop the city into the trench!"
"He cares nothing for the city," Mira rasps. Dragging her gray body to the doorway, her fins tremble with exhaustion. She holds a loaded harpoon gun in her shaking hands, fixing her milky eyes on the podium. "If Soryn cannot rule the Reef, he will break it into pieces."
The sickening hum builds.
It penetrates bone.
Terrified citizens in the crowd sink to the marble, curling their tails tight and clutching their bleeding ears. The delicate glass windows of the surrounding residential spires shatter under the acoustic pressure, raining a storm of sharp shards down on the panic below.
"Stop him!" I scream, pressing my hands over my ears.
Kael studies the vibrating spire, then shifts his attention to the madman at the console.
"I can't reach him," Kael says, his voice tight with frustration. "The sonic field around the podium acts as a solid barrier. It will crush anything attempting to cross."